How to Design Stunning Custom Wedding Invitations for Your Big Day
Planning your wedding is a momentous time filled with anticipation, joy, and love. For most couples, an off-the-shelf invite just won’t cut it. That’s why custom wedding invitations continue to be such a popular choice.
The thing is, traditional custom wedding invites can be quite pricey — from the card stock selection and design elements to the assortment of enclosure cards. Fortunately, there’s another option for bespoke wedding stationery at a fraction of the price: digital invitations. Here, we’ll show you how to create your own customized yet affordable wedding invitations with a simple step-by-step design process.
Digital Custom Wedding Invitations: The New Trend
When it comes to wedding planning, there are lots of budget considerations, and custom paper invitations can take a substantial chunk of your wedding budget. But we’re happy to share that custom wedding invites can be more affordable when you go paper-free.
Digital custom wedding invites are an ideal choice for many reasons. To start, they spare you the expense of printed cardstock and postage. They’re also eco-friendly and incredibly convenient, allowing you to create your designs from the comfort of your own computer. Online invitations also save you time — no need to head to the stationery store to pick out your invitation suite or wait for RSVP cards to roll in. You can send them in moments and track RSVPs with ease.
And let’s not forget that paper-free custom wedding invites still offer a bespoke look and feel. Whether you want the look of cotton paper, gold foil elements, or gorgeous monogram wedding cards, you have creative control and can transform any template into a completely unique design.
At Greenvelope, our wedding invitations offer you the opportunity to get creative and send invitations that feel uniquely yours, no matter how many guests you have or where they’re located.
7 Steps to Create Your Custom Wedding Invitations
You have your heart set on sending beautiful custom wedding invitations to your loved ones, but where do you start? Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to go from idea to reality with customized wedding invites.
1. Choose a Wedding Invitation Theme
Design: Plum Pretty Sugar®
The key to creating stunning wedding invites is to choose a theme. Whether you want something bold and striking, or soft and relaxed, a theme adds cohesion and polish.
Think about your wedding style and what you’re planning for your overall wedding theme. Often, couples will choose wedding stationery (including save the date cards and RSVP cards) in a style that matches their wedding theme or color scheme.
Decide whether you want your wedding invitation suite to feel classic and elegant, minimalist and contemporary, boho, whimsical, or floral — like this Vibrant Oasis invite. With your theme chosen, it’s much easier to build a shortlist of designs and eventually find your perfect invite.
2. Find a Template You Love
Design: Gwen B Design
There’s a design out there for any taste, interest, or passion — from watercolor florals to this gorgeous Dreamy Letterpress invitation. With your chosen theme in mind, you can start exploring different designs to see which catch your attention.
Greenvelope offers a collection of more than 400 wedding invitation designs for you to browse. Use our filters to narrow down the results and see only those that match your chosen color, style, shape, or features.
Spend time with your partner to look through the different designs. Talk about which elements you like, what you’d change, and what you want your dream wedding invites to look like. Every one of our templates is a foundation — you can play with the layout, colors, fonts, and wording to create your own unique design.
Don’t see a design that you’ve fallen in love with? You can also unleash your full creativity and upload your own custom design to enjoy the benefits of sending your invites through Greenvelope.
3. Consider a Photo Wedding Invitation
Design: Claudia Owen (Photo courtesy of Carina Skrobecki)
If you want to showcase some of your stunning engagement photos or simply love the idea of sharing a snap of the two of you, a photo wedding invitation is the way to go.
Greenvelope offers a lovely collection of photo wedding invitations that give you the space to share your favorite photo. We have designs that allow for a full-size photo, multiple photos, and framed photos. There are also a few unusual photo cards — like this Bold Type wedding invite.
4. Customize Your Wedding Invitations
Design: Carmia Jordaan
Once you’ve chosen your design, it’s time to customize. Even if you’re new to designing digital invites, there’s no reason to worry. We’ve developed an easy design process that guides you through each step, so you can create gorgeous invitations in no time at all.
Open up your chosen design and you’ll be prompted to start making changes. Click on design elements to add photos, change fonts, and adjust colors. Move elements around the template with an easy drag-and-drop system. Fine-tune details like letter spacing, font weight, and text alignment. Our editor makes it so easy to get a professional look even if you’re completely new to it.
Create an elegant wedding invitation with calligraphy script fonts, gold foil accents, and a professional engagement photo. Dream up a boho-themed wedding invitation with florals and greenery, hand-lettered font, and a sophisticated color palette. Make your own modern wedding invitation with bold colors, contemporary sans serif fonts, and retro design elements — like this Retro Arch invite. The choice is yours.
5. Customize Your Digital Envelope
Design: Laura Bolter Design
Your wedding invite takes center stage, but that doesn’t mean the envelope gets forgotten. With Greenvelope, you can also customize your digital envelope, ensuring your guests get that “wow factor” when they open up their email or SMS invite.
Choose the background color for your envelope, along with a liner to match your invite, like this Painted Florals design. Customize the font, size, and color selection of the recipient’s details. You can also choose to add a personalized digital stamp and a wax seal — perfect for traditional or whimsical themes, or if you simply want to recreate the look and feel of a classic wedding invite.
6. Add Your Wedding Day Details
Design: Jackie Crawford
Once you and your beloved are happy with the way your invite looks, it’s time to start adding in the finer details. It’s time to edit the event details sections to replace the placeholder dates and times with the information for your big day.
Use existing text blocks to add the essential details like your wedding day date, time, and location. If you need more space, add a new text block and use it to share details about your wedding dress code and entertainment, a few lines about your love story, or a note to say reception to follow — like on this Terrazzo wedding invite.
You don’t have to lose valuable space on your invitation card for all your event details. Our unique details panel allows you to share extra info and insights with your guests, keeping your main invite clutter-free. Use our details panel to include links to your gift registry or wedding website, or mention information about parking, hotels, or other useful details.
7. Send Your Custom Wedding Invites
Design: Carmia Jordaan
Finalize your design, check for any typos or broken links, and do a final run-through to make sure you’re happy with your custom wedding invites. After this, the next step is to hit send or schedule!
There’s no hard rule on when to send your wedding invites, but general etiquette suggests 6-8 weeks before your big day. For a destination wedding, allow at least three months for guests to make travel plans and book vacation time, and use a themed invite like this First Class invitation.
Set aside time to create and send your wedding invites close to this 6-8 week window, or make them ahead of time and use our scheduling feature to send them at the perfect moment.
Design Custom Wedding Invitations with Greenvelope
Custom wedding invites are no longer reserved for couples with a big budget and plenty of time. You can now customize your own online wedding invitations in moments — no designer, printing company, or technical experience required.
Discover a more exciting way to invite your loved ones to your special day with Greenvelope’s custom wedding invitations. You can also use our handy wedding invitation wording tool to help you find the right words for your invitation suite.
